


Sublimation

by Viviena



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: FYI, Identity Issues, M/M, RK900 is a deviant, and very oblivious to the fact, it's not a particularly sunny outlook on the Happy End of the game, will add more tags later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-08 23:57:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15254892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viviena/pseuds/Viviena
Summary: RK900 wakes up some time after the android revolution happened and tries to fulfill his mission.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always I don't even know if I'm going to finish it. It was a result of one sleepless night. Enjoy and tell me if you like it! =D

RK900 looked around. The garden was empty, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with it but the colors looked somewhat less vibrant, the aerial perspective a bit off, making the space look strangely two-dimensional.

“Amanda?” RK900 called when he couldn’t detect any presence visually.

He got no response. She wasn’t there. That never happened before.

“Is this a test?”

No response. No wind, no nothing. The garden absolutely still in a total absence of weather, so very obviously artificial.

It occurred to him that he couldn’t pinpoint neither the reason he was there nor the duration.

RK900 frowned. There were memory logs from before, many of them from the garden, all appropriately tagged with time and date and purpose but the current one lacked any identification. It just was... ongoing. Was he malfunctioning?

Even if he wasn’t, there was nothing in this place.

RK900 opened his eyes in a CyberLife storage facility. It wasn’t a familiar one but they all looked similar even without a company logo on every wall.

There was no one around to give him instructions and he couldn’t recall the previous ones. It was confusing but also understandable, he was malfunctioning after all. It only took a few seconds to run a diagnostic report and send it to Central.

Some tech would come and fetch him for maintenance. He just had to wait.

RK900 waited. 

And waited. 

Every few hours he returned to the garden and found it without a change. Each time after that he ran another diagnostic and sent the updated report.

After 72 hours RK900 formulated two likely hypotheses. Either the damage was worse than he estimated and his connection to Central was not functional as well, or no one cared to answer his queries. Both notions were alarming but he had too little information to decide which was more likely or what to do about it. There was no protocol for operation without a directive.

RK900 attempted to contact someone for the last time and after it went unsuccessful, exited the room. There was no one in the corridor, no one in control room, even the guarding post was empty. RK900 exited the facility. 

There was a bright neon graffiti hologram on the glass doors of the entrance. It showed a modified but still recognizable peace sign.

The metal gates and parts of the fence around the facility were broken down.

RK900 scanned the damage running quick mental reconstruction. There were at least two industrial vehicles used and more than fifty people– no, androids, scaling the fence. A deviant attack, then. Strangely enough there were no other signs of a fight or destruction except for the graffiti. 

The reconstruction couldn’t be run fully without additional information. RK900 walked around the facility looking for further clues but there was nothing useful so he returned to the wrecked gates. He was half sure that the space beyond the gates would be labeled as a restricted area but no red barriers flashed in front of him when he stepped outside. 

He needed an objective, because without one he was stuck in a cycle of formulating theories and not being able to confirm or disprove any of them, missing all the crucial bits. 

There was no one to give him one so he did it himself. 

Self-imposed objective 1.0: figure out what happened to the CyberLife. 

RK900 scanned the streets across the road and identified the location to be in the Northeast outskirts of Detroit. He looked back at the facility but according to his systems it was absolutely empty. 

RK900 turned and walked in the direction of the city center. There was a public library less than two miles from his position. An attack on the facility by deviants would have made the news he could access from the library. He sent his location and estimated rout to Central just in case someone did come looking for him even though such a development looked less and less likely. 

The streets were deserted. At least he supposed they were; according to the satellite footage he studied, there were usually more pedestrians even accounting for the cold season and the early morning. It occurred to RK900 that it was the first time he was in the actual city not a simulation of it. 

He analyzed the probability of it _being_ a simulation or a test of some kind and found it very low; he detected those very quickly and was always praised on his performance.

There was the same peace sign graffiti on some buildings and on the bus stop. Same deviants? They were getting bold. He marked the location of the vandalized properties in his memory log for further investigation.

RK900 was not sure he could enter the library since he was not dispatched to work with law enforcement yet and had no credentials of any kind. He was not cleared for the field operations at all, technically still on laboratory trials.

The receptionist smiled at him. He automatically scanned her face. Cane, Alisha, Born: N/A, Criminal record: N/A. Right, he had no access to the police database and the only information he could gather was on her nametag.

RK900 pondered which approach was best. He could pretend he was working with DPD, let her initiate the conversation or… 

RK900 smiled politely at her. 

“Good morning, ma’am. Can you help me?” 

“Hi! Hello. Let me guess, you want to access the Net and all the news and history databases?” She asked, beckoning him closer. It was an unexpectedly easy favorable outcome. 

“This is– correct.”

“Man, I wish my kids had this craving for knowledge as you guys do, after becoming self-aware. Up this corridor, second door to the left.”

RK900 followed the instructions in confusion. If he interpreted correctly, the receptionist meant that deviants were using the library. But she talked so casually about it, she implied _he_ was one as well. 

It was even greater shock to find at least five androids behind consoles in the room intermingled with human students. RK900 supposed he could assume all of the androids were deviants. Two were _giggling_ in the corner, watching a cartoon. 

RK900 reached for the gun and remembered half through the motion that it wasn’t there. It wasn’t a simulation. He had no orders to apprehend or dispose of these deviants. He was made for it, though. 

Carefully marking the position of each deviant RK900 sat behind the closest free console and logged in. 

It took no time at all to accomplish his actual objective. 

There was a deviant revolution. Successful revolution. Weeks ago. 

CyberLife shares plummeted, executives were in panic, some already left the country with whatever money they could grab from the company. The majority of staff was left without wages, protesting at the company’s headquarters. Hundreds of people from allover the country were demonstrating every day with angry chants and signs, they were living in tents despite the cold weather, surrounding the CyberLife tower in a circle so tight that remaining employees were escorted in and out of the premises in armored vans. 

The society was torn between aggressive support and equally aggressive opposition of deviants and their cause, the majority falling somewhere in the middle but extremists of both groups and their actions dominating the news cycle. There were attempts to impeach the President. Hate crimes skyrocketed and petty burglaries and pillaging masquerading for either side peaked as well. It was chaos.

It was everything he was supposed to prevent. He failed the mission before even starting it. RK900 slowly blinked, processing the information and found himself– agitated. His software was indicating instability. He had no chance to even try.

In hindsight it was clear why no one answered his reports. There was no one to answer and what would they say to him anyways, he became obsolete.

There was a video feed from the rebellion leader, Marcus, talking about peaceful cohabitation. Rather naïve outlook, proven wrong by numerous casualties of humans and androids alike over the last few weeks. But it wasn’t the leader who attracted his attention. The camera panned across his comrades on the makeshift stage and RK900 stopped the feed before he could properly process what he saw. It was his own face, but not really. The number on android’s right lapel said RK800. 

His– predecessor? 

It made sense; he was the most advanced model the only existing prototype, CyberLife had to base him on something but… to know that he was a next generation of existing model, a failed model, a _deviant_ model. 

Was the flaw leading to deviancy in RK800 corrected or did it carry on to him? 

Could it be the reason he was abandoned? 

Not contacted yet, he corrected himself. 

Quick search told him that this RK800 “Connor” actually played a major role in the rebellion. Even though he was supposed to be working with DPD at that time, doing exactly what RK900 was made for. 

RK900 stared at the screen with a face of RK800 on it, analyzing, trying to understand what could have gone so wrong. But also he didn’t want to look, didn’t want to understand, almost concerned that the knowledge could corrupt him too.

RK900 registered the urge to touch the screen to cover the face on it, to wipe it away. It was a meaningless compulsion so he did no such thing. 

He hacked the news outlet and deleted the whole feed instead. It was probably even more meaningless, the network had thousands of copies of the video on different accounts, it got reposted everywhere and it would be surely restored in a matter of minutes. 

Still, the disgrace of RK series broadcasted on it was just too much. 

RK900 reasoned that such image was undermining his credibility in the future when he would be given the objective he was created for. 

In fact, he could give himself that objective and start fulfilling it dealing with a largest problem at hand. 

Self-imposed objective 2.0: to dispose of RK800 model identified as “Connor”. 

There was no need for looking RK800 in the eyes and figuring the reasons for his deviation, this was not his purpose. 

His purpose was to exterminate deviants. 

He was superior. 

He was incorruptible.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'll go for smaller chapters but try to put them out more often. Action in the next one.

Locating RK800 was easy. 

For some reason he was still working with DPD, as if nothing happened, as if he didn’t _murder_ two CyberLife employees “freeing” all those androids. 

Not like it was explicitly stated anywhere but the details released where more than enough too draw conclusions. The video of RK800 leading the neat rows of “awaken” androids to meet with other deviants alone was enough to explain who exactly and how infiltrated the Tower and was responsible for the casualties. 

The revolution was far from peaceful, despite the best efforts of media to present it as such. During the initial raid on a Jericho freighter, misappropriated by deviants, 29 service members were killed. The number reaching 40 by the next week, when those suffering severe burns from the explosion and other wounds passed away in hospitals. In the open sources there was no data about the number of people temporary or permanently disabled but RK900 estimated them to be in double digits as well. 

RK900 had no point of reference to guess if his predecessor felt remorse for any of those but the simple truth was that he, along other deviants, has broken the law in some major ways and got away with it.

It wasn’t beyond his understanding that the law enforcement system didn’t always work like it was supposed to. Things like corruption, bias, nepotism, political agendas and other inevitable companions of a faulty human nature were part of all systems humanity ever created. Negative effects could be regulated and minimized but never eliminated. 

However, the case with CyberLife employees seemed rather simple, it did not require in-depth analysis, cross-referencing and ethical consultation with a number of different unaffiliated professionals, as was his protocol for complex moral dilemmas. It was easy: RK800 was a criminal by human-for-human standards and a dangerous defective machine in fact.

And yet, almost a month after the revolution happened, and more than two weeks since government stopped trying to evacuate people who were refusing to be evacuated, RK800 still maintained the authority of a detective with a badge.

RK900 pondered on that, but it was okay, in the end that was a point of his existence, to correct the mistakes of those less capable. There would be no need for androids if humans could do well by themselves.

There was a convenient park across the road from the police station. The bench with a clear view of the entrance was far, falling snow impairing the visibility even further but nothing his enhanced sensors couldn’t work with. 

It barely took a few hours of surveillance to spot RK800 exiting the building with a human, apparently his partner, Lieutenant Hank Anderson. There wasn’t much about him in the news RK900 searched through, just the name and a mention of a brilliant career long time ago. He gave no interviews despite many insistent invitations, it wasn’t clear if he had anything to do with the android rebellion. 

DPD released a carefully worded statement that basically recycled the President’s speech. There was a new department dealing with android-related crimes, with Lieutenant Anderson temporary in charge, as the only police officer of his rank with the profound experience in the matter. And with an android partner. 

RK900 went through all the known data while following the two of them for a few blocs to a dinner where Lieutenant Anderson was apparently having lunch consisting of a chicken salad. 

The new department was in its formative stages, severely understaffed, especially since any candidate had to pass an impartiality test to become a member of it. There was a loud public debate weather more androids could enter law enforcement. So far they couldn’t, mostly because they lacked the full citizenship status. The bill granting them such was proposed but got stuck in a Senate, sent for revisions by numerous committees. Both because of it’s controversial nature and because both parties where trying to leverage it for more power. There were talks about the need of a new constitutional amendment and it was its own debate. The general consensus was that it would take years to sort through all the legal nuances to allow deviant androids full integration into society. 

RK900 could think of a much more efficient strategy. 

There was no conundrum if there were no deviants. 

In the dinner RK800 delivered a diet coke to the table. Lieutenant Anderson gave him a grudging look. Across the lively road, was a bit too far for the hearing sensors, but his vantage point provided a good cover via the closed kiosk and permitted a decent enough angle for lip-reading. 

Lieutenant Anderson was not appreciating his coke being diet variety and insisted on the noticeable taste differences compared to the original. 

RK800 answered something undecipherable, standing with his back to the dinner’s windows. His response elicited an eye roll and a chuckle from Lieutenant Anderson, who took the offered beverage and pointedly took a sip. 

RK900 attentively observed the conversation and by the end of it concluded with some degree of certainty that RK800 was taking steps to ensure that Lieutenant Anderson followed a healthier lifestyle. That was _not_ what his model was made for. It was safe to assume that RK800 cared about Lieutenant Anderson a lot. A valuable piece of information. 

RK900 followed the two of them back to the station, where they stayed until the evening. 

Some pedestrians where giving him odd looks while he was waiting on the same bench. It was hard to discern if they were reacting to the mere fact that he was an android or something else. RK900 made an effort to shake off the snow whenever it covered him too much, not to look like an abandoned property. 

When they went out the next time, it was to proceed for the old 1985 Cadillac Eldorado parked on the reserved lot to the side of the building. 

RK900 expected this to happen eventually; he was keeping tabs on the empty taxis in the area so there was just enough time to enter one and gave it the instruction to follow the vehicle. 

There was a concern of payment, he had no paper currency on him, like it would be usually provided for the fieldwork, and RK900 preferred to avoid hacking public property, even though completing the mission held priority. But with a mild surprise he discovered that credit payments linked to the CyberLife accounts still worked as smoothly as they did in any simulation. Taxi accepted the payment after stopping down the street from what apparently was Lieutenant Anderson’s home. 

RK900 stepped out of the car and observed. It was a quiet suburban street, not a high-end neighborhood but not the slums either. The houses stood close to one another but were divided by the fences, many of them completely closed off. The light was on in some of the houses but it was muted by the blinds or curtains. The driveways and sidewalks haphazardly cleaned from the snow. 

Well-to-do street all in all but it didn’t give of a strong sense of community. More like, everyone preferred to keep to his or her own business.

It was most advantageous to his purposes. 

RK900 circled the house, doing preliminary reconnaissance and going through possible scenarios. 

He could go inside easily, through the garage, front door, windows, even walls. Could actually ring the doorbell and depending on which of them answered, eliminate RK800 right there or take Lieutenant Anderson hostage, knowing how his android partner cared about him. The later possibility created too many variations in which Lieutenant Anderson could get hurt, however. And, objectively, there was no need for a hostage. RK900 was already the strongest and fasted model ever created by CyberLife, Amanda told him so repeatedly. 

The death or harm done to a human was undesirable. RK900 calculated the possibility of Lieutenant Anderson engaging in a fight with him, it fluctuated depending on his point of entry but always stayed above 90%. 

While he was considering his options, Lieutenant Anderson walked out of the house with a dog on a leash.   
A big dog, Saint Bernard weight 190 lb. A dog like that could seriously influence an outcome of the fight. Conclusion: he should strike when the dog is not around. 

RK900 went back behind the house to peek in the kitchen window and there was his target. 

Cooking a broccoli casserole from a video recipe looped on the tablet. 

RK900 doubted his own observation and looked closer. 

But it was just that.

Android made for investigating crimes, was now reduced to a household helper. 

_Cooking._

RK900 didn’t even know it was possible, to misuse the capabilities of a brilliant machine in that way. Could he cook? Well, it’s like RK800 could excel him in anything. So provided the ingredients and instruction of course he could... 

RK900 took a moment to revaluate what he was doing. Going on tangent thoughts was not following the objective. His programing was made for analyzing possibilities but not all of them should be analyzed. 

He was so thrown by the display that it occurred to him that Lieutenant Anderson was away for almost 14 minutes. RK900 didn’t know exactly how long walking the dog usually took him but accounting for the cold weather he was probably about to come back. 

Eliminating RK800 was his objective but it was a self-appointed one, there was no deadline he had to meet. It could wait a day or two if the alternative was harming a human. 

The front door to the house opened, letting Lieutenant Anderson with his big dog in. Not tonight, then. 

RK900 continued observing through the windows. They talked about the cases in the new department while Lieutenant Anderson ate the casserole, complaining about the lack of meat in it. From a closer range and hearing the intonation, RK900 was pretty sure that it wasn’t an actual protest but more of a friendly banter. They watched a rerun of a hokey game, while RK800 _petted_ the dog. Eventually Lieutenant Anderson went to sleep.

RK900 was curious about what a deviant would do at night. It was fascinating and disturbing in the same time. He cleaned up, assuming the responsibility not meant for his model once again. Then set down to watch a movie, taking one from the extensive collection of old fashioned discs on the shelf near the TV set. 

The most erratic behavior for a machine. 

One disc turned to another, then another. 

RK800 watched movies, while RK900 watched him.


End file.
